Liner Notes

Imagine Ted Nugent and pals, .38 Special and pals, and a tanker truck full of Kentucky whiskey getting into a high-speed three-way collision in the middle of a sleazy strip club located outside of a big trailer park. Now imagine all that gruesome, alcohol-drenched ruckus put to music. And thus, you have Nashville Pussy.

Since Nashville Pussy’s 1998 debut, Let ‘Em Eat . . ., they’ve proven themselves to be a very consistent, very reliable band that lives and breathes the laws of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. And I’m not talking the glammy, California-inspired rock that you hear me constantly praising, oh no. Nashville Pussy is ugly rock ‘n roll. Ugly rock ‘n roll pounded with an ugly stick. Loud. Crude. Obnoxious. This is music spawned from the South, with a swaggering, base sensibility that hasn’t changed since Southerners first started making music. And I’m not talking about the pretty gospel music from the nice townsfolk, I’m talking about the stuff banged out in shacks and outside of swamps by people that knew nothing of political correctness and politeness, raw music made by raw people. Due to this, I’ve always found Nashville Pussy to have a bit of a timeless quality to it, as this is music that could’ve been made decades ago, even a century ago, and it would’ve been exactly the same, other than the production quality.

You don’t believe me? Go give some of David Allen Coe’s old stuff a listen, his old “forbidden” stuff that doesn’t get put on the Greatest and Super Hits collections and can’t be found in any jukebox. “Cumstains On The Pillow” anybody? In many ways, Nashville Pussy are the modern-day spiritual successors of Coe and others that practiced the art of crude-ass Southern rock. Though, thankfully, Nashville Pussy don’t feel the need to bring any sort of racism into it. Hell no. They’re way too busy with the sex lyrics!

A shotgun blast of guitar-driven Southern-style rock ‘n roll, Say Something Nasty is Nashville Pussy’s third, and arguably best, effort to date, and it’s just as much fun as the first two. Though fire-breathing Amazon Corey Parks no longer handles bass duties, replaced by Katielynn Campbell, the rest of the band is still there, and there’s been no change in Pussy’s trademark sound, though it does sound as though their musicianship’s improved. Or maybe it’s just the quality production, I dunno. But regardless, this ugly music sounds right pretty!

I’m tempted to just finish the review here with the same kind of statement I’d use for an AC/DC or Jackyl album: this is more of the same, and if you liked earlier albums, you’ll love this one. Like the aforementioned two bands, Nashville Pussy has a formula and they’re sticking to it, and that’s a good thing, because that formula is still yielding great results. So if you like previous Nashville Pussy albums, stop reading right now, because you don’t need to be told anything further.

Besides having one of the best titles I’ve heard in a long time, “Gonna Hitchhike Down To Cincinnati And Kick The Shit Outta Your Drunk Daddy,” is built upon a sweet Ruyter Suys riff that sounds like it could’ve been taken from any good 1970’s Southern rock album, and is taken to greatness by gravel-voiced Blaine Cartwright’s vocals. Despite looking like he should be passed-out in front of somebody’s trailer, Blaine’s one of those guys that could sing the names out of a phonebook and do it with total conviction. The sheer relish he brings to the table is one of the best things Nashville Pussy’s got going for it, and it’s very hard not to grin when Blaine bemoans getting kicked out because of getting caught with his girlfriend’s sister and mother in the gleefully lecherous “The Bitch Just Kicked Me Out.” Like the Murderdolls, Nashville Pussy’s one of those bands where you want to pay attention to the lyrics simply because you’re not gonna believe some of the things that are said, and how cleverly the band goes about their obscenity. That’s on full display in the catchy, chugging “Keep On Fuckin'” . . . Keep on fuckin’/That’s God’s First Commandment/Keep on fuckin’/Even a dog can understand it! And so on and so forth.

One of the things I enjoy the most about Nashville Pussy is how so many of their songs contain bits and pieces of guitar that are reminiscent of great ’70’s rock, both Southern and otherwise. Listening to Nashville Pussy is a lot like listening a really cool oldies station, except that the language and subject matter is a good bit dirtier. I love the grittily upbeat guitar riffs and licks on “Here’s To Your Destruction,” which really does sound like a mean-spirited oldie from the glory days of AM radio. Ruyter’s not the most inventive or fancy lead guitarist in the world, but she sounds great at what she does, and gets better with each album. In fact, before we get off the topic of oldies rock entirely, the band finishes off the album with a rollicking cover of Rick Derringer’s classic “Rock ‘n Roll Hoochie Coo,” which fits right in with the rest of the album and is a fitting finale for Say Something Nasty. A suitably good end for a damned fine album.

Matt Jones 411mania.com

Reviews

Say Something Nasty is the new Artemis album by Nashville Pussy. Frontman Blaine Cartwright declares in no uncertain terms that “It’s our best album yet and we’re gonna shove it up America’s ass!” [Read More...]